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You’ve probably heard of Vani Hari, just not by that name. She is far more widely known as the Food Babe, thanks to her Facebook page and blog of the same name. She has something on the order of a cool million Facebook followers (whom she calls the Food Babe Army), her co-authored book The Food Babe Way hit number one on the best-sellers list in February, and her bubbly charm and cheerleader attractiveness (hence Food Babe and not, say, Food Gal or Food Lady) have made her a hot get for magazines and TV talk shows, to the extent that she might wind up hosting one of the latter herself.
Although that might be superfluous, these days. TV is still considered the media major leagues, but you could make a good argument that a blogger with a million readers has more influence than, say, a Dr. Oz with two million viewers. That’s because reading requires the person’s full attention, whereas having the TV set on does not. Nobody reads the Babe’s words while ironing, or doing a crossword puzzle, or making the kids’ lunches. The Babe is a powerful and efficient messenger.
And that’s what’s worrisome. Because the Food Babe has an unfortunate habit of dispensing advice or information which is not just wrong, or even dead wrong, but nutcase wrong. That may be because she has no academic background or credentials in the subjects that her advice and information involve, primarily nutrition, food safety and environmental hazards. She studied computer science, not food or environmental science. And the sources she sometimes cites are hardly more qualified. But let’s review some of her more eye-rolling statements and urgings.
No chemicals are safe and flu shots cause Alzheimer’s?
“There is just no acceptable level of any chemical to ingest, ever,” she declares. Presumably that would include the likes of sodium chloride, NaHCO3, CH3COOH, and C6H8O,6, which are, respectively, salt, baking soda, vinegar, and vitamin C. The fact is, every single thing we eat or drink is composed of chemicals. Admittedly, the food and beverage industry have proven themselves to be lax, or even duplicitous, in ensuring that no harmful chemicals go into their products, but that doesn’t make her insanely broad denunciation any less stupid.
Another declaration: “What’s exactly in the Flu Shot? To sum it up – A bunch of toxic chemicals and additives that lead to several types of Cancers and Alzheimer disease over time.” Not to be picky, but it’s actually Alzheimer’s disease and not Alzheimer disease, which should be a clue as to the Babe’s expertise. And the fact that she raised the specter of that dreaded affliction along with several cancers – autism evidently wasn’t scary enough for her – should be a clue to her objective, which is not so much to help people live healthy lives as to work them into a state of constant alarm and distrust. Of course, nobody who has seriously researched possible links between vaccination and cancer or dementia knows what she’s talking about. Then again, neither, it seems, does she.
“Avoid ingredients you can’t pronounce or that you’ve never heard of,” is another morsel of the Babe’s sage counsel. For a marked contrast, consider the opinion of Dr. Steven Novella, a clinical neurologist and assistant professor at Yale University’s school of medicine: “It’s almost like she’s a food terrorist. She will target some benign ingredient that has a scary sounding name. Her criteria is if she can’t pronounce it then it’s scary.”
Everything’s dangerous, but I can fix you in 3 weeks
Her book happily declares that by ridding yourself of “the hidden toxins in your food,” you can “lose weight, look years younger, and get healthy in just 21 days.” This neatly encapsulates the two fundamental elements of quackery: that we are in grave danger posed by the commonplace things in our lives, and that our bodies can be physically reborn almost by magic and almost overnight.
She raised alarms that beer-makers were concealing all manner of dangerous additives in their recipes, such as propylene glycol, which is used in antifreeze, for God’s sake. Except that what beer-makers actually use, to reduce foam, is propylene glycol alginate, which is not only a completely different chemical, but is extracted from ordinary kelp, a popular item in health-food stores.
In 2011, she cautioned her followers that the air circulated inside airliners was routinely composed 50 percent or more of nitrogen, the Babe having apparently not been informed that the air outside the plane and all around those of us on the ground is slightly more than 75 percent nitrogen.
Microwaves: The Chernobyl in your kitchen
She has waged an especially energetic campaign against microwave ovens, and her essay, “Why It’s Time To Throw Out Your Microwave,” is particularly enlightening. One study, she reports, found that several soldiers developed blood cancer after eating microwaved meals, and that microwaving nullified food’s nutritional value. The study, however, involved German soldiers, and was conducted by scientists in Nazi Germany during World War II, not exactly the go-to source for reliable research.
She further cited the book Health Begins in the Colon in noting that microwaving breaks down vitamins and minerals and weakens the immune and digestive systems. The book’s author, Dr. Edward Group, turns out to be an alternative medicine entrepreneur who received his M.D. from the unaccredited Joseph LaFortune medical school, a Florida diploma mill headquarted in Haiti that has been successfully sued for fraud by its graduates.
But there’s more: Microwaving breaks down the very cells of the person doing the microwaving. As the Babe warned, “I cannot knowingly use a microwave considering they are slowly destroying my cells. According to the book Cancer is Not a Disease – It’s a Survial Mechanism, ‘when you stand in front of a radar device you will start perspiring/cooking from the inside out.’” Pretty scary, eh?
But maybe not so much when you learn that the book’s author, one Andreas Moritz, also says that the best medicine for cancer is no medicine. To wit: “Cancer does not kill a person afflicted with it! What kills a cancer patient is not the tumor, but the numerous reasons behind cell mutation and tumor growth. These root causes should be the focus of every cancer treatment … Constant conflicts, guilt and shame, for example, can easily paralyze the body’s most basic functions, and lead to the growth of a cancerous tumor.”
Cancer? Hey it’s all in your head. You may not buy that, but the Babe apparently does. Oh, and microwaving also degrades water crystals, her source for this shocker being a Japanese researcher who theorizes that water crystals are also degraded by hearing foul language or references to evil such as “Hitler” or “Satan.” As the saying goes, you couldn’t make this stuff up.
Just for the record, here are some alternative opinions on microwave safety:
Food cooked in a microwave oven is as safe, and has the same nutrient value, as food cooked in a conventional oven. The main difference between these two methods of cooking is … the overall cooking time. [Bodily] thermal damage would only occur from long exposures to very high power levels, well in excess of those measured around microwave ovens. – World Health Organization.
The prevailing view is that microwaves do not alter foods in ways that are any more deleterious or harmful than other types of cooking. In fact, some have argued that the faster cooking time may actually preserve more nutrients versus other methods. – Good Housekeeping.
Manufacturers must certify that their microwave ovens comply with strict FDA emission limits. The emission limits are well below the threshold for risk to public health. – Food and Drug Administration.
There are plenty more criticisms of Ms. Hart where these came from, especially from genuine food and nutrition experts and scientists, but they basically boil down to the charge that she capitalizes on millions of people’s genuine suspicion about the safety and nutritional value provided by the food industry by dispensing fear-mongering misinformation, promoting an unhealthy and counterproductive obsession with food content, and offering up sheer nonsense as fact.
Is the Food Babe a food boob?
She assumes and promotes two bogus premises: (1) that science is suspect, and (2) that suspicion is evidence. In the first case, you begin with the reality that scientists don’t know absolutely everything, and proceed directly to the conclusion that they therefore may not know anything. In the second case, your position is that whatever might be true, probably is, or to put it the way it is most commonly heard, “I saw a thing on the Internet where it said that ….”
It’s probably inaccurate to label her the Food Boob; she’s far too successful to be a simpleton or a naif. She evidently knows what she’s doing. No, the boobs in this case are, regrettably, those who believe in her and her dubious pronouncements.
By Robert S. Wieder, CalorieLab’s Senior Health Columnist since 2006. Author of several books, including 115 Reasons Why It’s Not Your Fault You’re Fat, Bob wrote for numerous national magazines after starting out as editor of the UC Berkeley humor magazine the California Pelican. He also put in a stint as a San Francisco-area stand-up comic.
Food Babe: A ‘Food Purist’ Dishing up Some Strikingly Tainted Fare is a post from:
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